Fairy tale night: Couple get engaged at annual Air Force Ball

“It was totally unexpected. It was total shock, but total joy at the same time.”

Annie Blanks @DestinLogAnnie

OKALOOSA ISLAND — What was supposed to be simply a nice evening at the annual Air Force Ball turned into a fairy tale night for Christine Dey and her airman, Maj. José Martinez.

Dey, a real estate broker and Delta flight attendant who lives in Fort Walton Beach, accompanied her boyfriend to the ball Saturday night at the Emerald Coast Convention Center. While there, friends encouraged them to take pictures at the event’s official photo booth. Dey and Martinez smiled for the cameras and snapped a couple of pictures, but before she knew it Martinez dropped to his knee and asked Dey to marry him.

“It was totally unexpected,” Dey said. “It was total shock, but total joy at the same time.”

Martinez, who has been in the Air Force for 28 years and has been deployed four times, met Dey shortly after he was assigned to Hurlburt Field two years ago. The pair met on a dating website and have been inseparable ever since.

“I felt we were eventually going to get married ... but I just didn’t know when it was going to happen, so I was very happily surprised,” Dey said.

Dey said Martinez showed no signs that he was going to pop the question that night, but he admitted to her later he had been plotting for quite awhile, and even had taken a ring out of Dey’s jewelry box to get the proper size.

The night and the proposal couldn’t have gone more perfectly, according to Dey.

“I just think that I’m so blessed that we found each other,” she said. “And I’m just truly blessed and fortunate to have met him and that it transpired into now what will be our lifetime of happiness.”